


Pain Too Lonely to Know

by murderofporgs



Series: Flammable Materials [2]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Leia needs a hug, No hugs are given, Poe Dameron Needs A Hug, Post-TLJ
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 14:57:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13343616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murderofporgs/pseuds/murderofporgs
Summary: Sometimes, being a leader means you need to look pretty, give good speeches, and have faith that your friends will have your back.Leia and Poe, picking up the pieces.





	Pain Too Lonely to Know

It’s a mystery how a ship as crowded as the  _ Millennium Falcon _ is right now can feel so empty. Leia knows this endearing old heap of junk like her own pocket. Her history is in the bulkheads and when she closes her eyes, it’s like she can still hear whispers of old arguments, stupid misunderstandings, endless kisses to make up for it all. Leia always liked the making up. She’d never admit it, but there were times she would pick a fight on purpose just so she’d get to have Han reverent and apologetic in their bed later. She suspects he did the same thing. 

 

All the time she and Han spent on this ship, bouncing off each other’s sharp edges. When Ben was little, he’d sit in his father’s lap in the cockpit, staring wide-eyed at the stars. With both of them gone, Leia can feel her own place here shrinking, like she will never fit again.

 

She’s getting weepy in her old age. That won’t do.

 

By some sort of collective decision, the crew cabin has been set up for Leia’s exclusive use. She would have protested, but the moment she reclined on the bunk, intending only to rest for a few minutes, she ended up falling asleep so it was a moot point. Surviving the attack on the  _ Raddus  _ took more out of her than she wants to admit and she’s feeling every single one of her years and then some. It seems very urgent now to find people to succeed her. They might need to step up sooner than later, and she needs to get a stable foundation of command established before it’s too late.

 

The heartsick and dejected presence coming her way tells her that one of her best candidates is just about to show up, and she turns her head to the open bulkhead door.

 

“Poe. You look better.”

 

He leans against the doorjamb, offers a forced smile. “Really? ‘Cause I feel like I’ve wrestled a rancor.”

 

He’s a little unsteady still, pale and dazed, with one arm wrapped tightly around his rib cage. It’s still a definite improvement to the man who keeled over in the middle of a sentence last night, utterly exhausted.

 

“Well, you seem to be coherent at least, so that’s a step up.” Leia smiles so he’ll know she’s joking and he ducks his head, embarrassed.

 

“Not one of my finer moments, I guess, but it’s not like I’ve had one of those in a while so…” He hesitates, hovering just outside the cabin. “May I come in? Beeb said you wanted to see me.”

 

There’s a shrill beep from just behind his legs and Poe turns, looking downward. “No, you can’t. I said no. Go bother Finn and Rey, I’ll be back soon, okay?”

 

Another series of agitated noises. Leia knows just enough binary to get the gist of it. [BB-8 should not leave Poe Dameron alone. Bad things happen when BB-8 leaves Poe Dameron alone.]

 

“I’m  _ fine _ , buddy. Go ahead, I’ll come find you when we’re done. You can chase the porgs around if you want to.”

 

This time the beep is one of elation and Leia allows herself a real smile at the sound of the excited droid rolling down the corridor.

 

“That’s one loyal little droid you’ve got there,” she tells Poe as he steps into the cabin.

 

“The best,” Poe agrees. He’s trying to make it look like he’s not leaning too hard against the counter of the galley, but Leia has known her share of flyboys and she suspects he’s got to be hurting pretty bad now that the adrenaline has faded. She’s just waiting to see if he’ll admit it or not. 

 

“Would you mind making me a cup of tea?” she asks. “You know how I like it. There’s caf too if you want it.”

 

That seems to perk him up a little at least. “I honestly can’t think of anything I wouldn’t do for a cup of caf right now.” 

 

Poe starts rummaging around the cupboards in the galley. Leia already knows her favourite tea blend will be in there. Han might have been in a hurry to restock on D’qar, but he would have made time for the essentials. 

 

He had this galley put in for her. A wedding gift, he’d called it, and Leia had been  _ furious  _ about it. Just because she’d agreed to marry him didn’t mean she intended to play the perfect little wife and cook and clean for him. Han had been just as angry, stating that if his ship wasn’t good enough for her he might as well remove it and himself from her view. He and Chewie had taken off to the Outer Rim in pursuit of some harebrained scheme and been gone for three weeks. 

 

Of course, neither of them had been able to admit what it was they were actually angry about and it wasn’t until later that Leia understood that Han had been trying to do something  _ nice _ . Turn the  _ Falcon  _ into something more like a home for her the way it was for him. It wasn’t his fault she’d grown up with servants and never learned her way around a kitchen, even less a freighter galley, and she hadn’t realized that he’d always fantasized about a proper home as a place where you got to sit down around a meal with your family.

 

Han had ended up doing most of the cooking whenever she and Ben were onboard. He hadn’t been  _ good  _ at it, but he’d tried, and Leia had appreciated the effort.

 

Poe brings her out of her musings, moving over to the galley table with two steaming mugs. He hands her one of them, she sniffs it and finds comfort in the well-known fragrance. Poe sips from his own mug and breathes in sharply, his eyes widening in something like alarm.

 

“Han recalibrated that caf-maker to his liking,” Leia informs him. “There’s a reason for why I drink tea.”

 

Poe blinks, blinks again, and then braves another sip of the beverage. “I could get used to this, actually,” he says, with a strangled quality to his voice. “It’s got a kick, that’s for sure.”

 

Leia fights the urge to roll her eyes. “Why am I not surprised?” 

 

He chuckles in return and then winces as it apparently jars his… ribs? Has to be the ribs. Nevertheless, he turns and makes another go for the cupboards until he finds a box of pre-packaged ration bars. “Ah, breakfast!” he exclaims, not halfway as enthused as he’s trying to sound, and brings a few of them over to the table. 

 

They can be described as ‘food’ only in the loosest sense of the world, but they have all the calories and nutrients necessary to sustain most humanoids and literally no expiration date. If the destination Leia has in mind pans out, there will probably be a lot of ration bars in their future.

 

They eat in silence. Leia studies her own fingers wrapped around the mug. Her skin still bears the marks of space freeze, thin and fragile, and there are wrinkles there that she can’t remember getting. When did her hands turn into the hands of an old woman? When she looks up at Poe, he seems similarly lost in thought, running the tip of his index finger over his lower lip.

 

“Something on your mind, Commander?” she asks.

 

Poe starts, turns to look at her like she just woke him up. “No, I was just… it’s nothing.” Then he backtracks. “Wait, ‘Commander’? I thought…”

 

All right. This needs to be said, so she’d better get to it. “In hindsight, your decision to take out the dreadnought was absolutely correct. If you hadn’t, and it had followed us through hyperspace, we would all be dead right now. There is no way we could have stayed out of range of those autocannons. You were right, I was wrong.”

 

It’s clear this is the first time he’s considered that and a look of horror creeps into his eyes when the realization dawns on him. “I didn’t know that then,” he says.

 

“Neither did I. But as it turns out, I made a wrong call.  _ That  _ time.” Leia raises both her eyebrows to drive the point in. 

 

“Right.” Poe’s shoulders slumps and he lowers his gaze to the table. “Everything after, though. I have no excuse.”

 

Leia takes a moment to study him. In a perfect world, he would have been put on leave after his miraculous return from Jakku. He should have had time to recover, but desperation had dictated otherwise. Poe might not have been thinking clearly on the  _ Raddus _ , he might have made some terrible mistakes, but when all is said and done, Leia was the one who put him in that position and she can’t shirk the responsibility.  

 

“I have experienced Force interrogation,” she says, making her voice as gentle as she knows how. “It’s not something you just shake off.”

 

He looks up, sharply, with a burning determination in his eyes. “I’m not talking about that.”

 

“Poe, what you went through…”

 

He interrupts. “No, I’m  _ not talking _ about that. Not right now and, don’t take this the wrong way but, not with you.” The tense set of his jaw softens a little bit as he continues. “I couldn’t do that to you, Leia.”

 

Because of Ben. Of course. And the worst thing is, it’s not that Poe  _ blames  _ her. He just wants to spare her the grief. What did she do to earn such devotion? 

 

“All right, I won’t make you. But you need to talk to  _ someone _ . It will eat you whole if you don’t.”

 

Leia remembers what it was like, having your brain invaded, violated and scrubbed raw like that. She wasn’t a very pleasant person to be around, right after. Poe bears the marks as well. He’s putting up a brave front, but there’s a new kind of darkness in his eyes, his usual exuberance has dimmed. When he realizes that Leia won’t let the matter drop without a promise, he sighs and runs a weary hand through his hair. “Yeah. I’ll… I’ll find someone. Just not…” Poe glances at the open bulkhead door, as if he’s expecting eavesdroppers. “They need to trust me and they won’t do that if I’m a kriffing wreck. It’s going to be hard enough as it is.”

 

It’s new, this kind of self-doubt. A little bit of it might be good, might make him more cautious, a little more likely to think ahead. Too much, though, and it’ll cripple him. Leia can’t allow that.    

 

“They already trust you. You led them to safety on Crait, they’ll remember that.”

 

Poe barks out a laugh, short and sharp and thoroughly devoid of any kind of amusement. “I got them trapped in the tunnels.  _ Rey  _ saved us. If it hadn’t been for her...”

 

“You gave them hope that there would be a rescue and that was enough.” Leia reaches out to take his hand in both hers. “Poe, I’ll let you in on a secret. Sometimes, being a leader means you need to look pretty, give good speeches, and have faith that your friends will have your back. I think you’ve got at least two of those down already.” She lets the corner of her mouth quirk into a smile, and there’s just a moment of confusion in his eyes before he realizes that she’s making fun of him.

 

“I am pretty terrible at speeches,” he says, and there’s finally a smile on his face as well, wry as it is.

 

“‘ _ We are the spark that will light the fire that will burn the First Order down _ ’?” Leia quotes mercilessly.

 

Poe groans and buries his face in his hands. “I said that, didn’t I?”

 

“You did, and I should warn you, it’s already becoming a thing. We might need to get ahead of that one if we want to use it.”

 

“I stole it, you know,” Poe confesses, deep regret and more than a little shame in his voice. Leia had suspected as much, and it does nothing to soothe the grief. One day, all the lives that have been laid down in her service will be a weight too heavy to bear. She wonders what it says about her that the day hasn’t yet arrived.

 

“Amilyn Holdo would have approved,” she says. “And she will live on in those words.”

 

Poe nods solemnly, goes back to staring sightlessly at his cooling cup of caf, lost in thought. Right now, Leia wishes she was anyone but General Organa. She wishes she could fold Shara Bey’s son into her arms, hold him and comfort him, kiss his temple and assure him that he will be fine, like she did when he came to her with skinned knees as a boy, during those carefree visits to Yavin. She can’t, Ben’s shadow is too heavy over them both, and Leia wants to curse the universe. Their children weren’t supposed to be soldiers. Their children were supposed to grow up safe and happy.  

 

Should she contact Kes? She hasn’t talked to him since Poe joined the Resistance, and then it was only in a very terse holocall where the elder Dameron had growled at her that she’d better keep his boy alive,  _ or else _ . They could use Kes’ experience now, his reliable voice of reason.

 

No. That wouldn’t be fair. Kes fought his war and made it clear that he had no interest in fighting another one. 

 

There’s also a cowardly little part of her that doesn’t want Kes to see what a very bad job she’s been doing at keeping his boy alive. The fact that Poe is sitting here in front of her today is all down to his own courage and ingenuity and has very little to do with Leia’s efforts.

 

He will be a leader, because she asked it of him, and he will give it everything he has. He’s got the heroic good looks and he does know how to give a speech, despite his own protests. Leia is just afraid that, unless he can finally learn to lean on people, it’s going to break him as a man.

**Author's Note:**

> I miss Carrie Fisher so damn much!


End file.
